Garden and surprises good and bad !

We put a call out for volunteers to come last Wednesday to do maintenance on the equipments and garden and a lovely crowd of beekeepers showed up to help.

The garden has become overgrown with Ash and Sycamore which have distorted and blocked light from the plants at the back of the garden. They overshadowed what we are making into a show bed for people to see what plants bee really like.

SO, we left the other day when Keith had done this. We rocked up on Wednesday and here’s what was happening !

Keith had moved those hefty sleepers and most of the soil by himself !

Campbell and Alan jumped in to lend a hand, plus the essential Samoyed assistants.

Sue and Campbell and me brought the plants over and bedded them in.

And this was the pano from the end of the day.

Amazing what a difference a couple of hours volunteering can do !

I haven’t any pictures of them, but Jan and Tony were beavering away building supers in the pavilion… with only small hammers to help them.

I forgot to mention the not so good ! Campbell and me were taking out sycamore and ash sapling which are overshadowing the garden, and I stepped right into a wasp nest ! We ran from the apiary flapping like cartoon figures, covered in stinging wasps ! Very itch for a few days, but we have antihistamines and painkillers, so it’s not so bad.

We left the wasps to settle, cos they’re pollinators too, and as long as they leave our bees alone we will let them stay where they are.

Looking forward to the next time we all get down here. We’ll be dealing with the overgrown area at the back, and planting more bee plants for the show garden.